June 25 – July 22, 2025
Curator: Svetlana MladenovMental Performances is the first in a series of exhibitions dedicated to drawing, which BelArt Gallery plans to organize in the coming period. The series aims to showcase the complexity and contemporaneity of this discipline, the possibilities for its diverse treatment, and its constructive dialogue with space, techniques, and materials.
Slobodan Knežević Abi, bez naziva
Selman Trtovac, Linija za Savamalu
Ljubomir Vučinić, Energy emission
Drawing as the basis of almost every artistic exploration can be only a note, sketch, template, or study, but it can also be an autonomous work of art. This exhibition deals with drawing as an independent discipline that carries within it all the elements of a complete artistic process. The presented drawings are executed on paper and MDF, which can be classified as basic and classical supports. Through the works of three artists: Ljubomir Vučinić, Slobodan Knežević, and Selman Trtovac, the exhibition provides insight into different poetics and discourses as well as a shared affinity for abstraction. Treated in different ways, abstract form demonstrates abundance, often of unexpected possibilities. This exhibition reveals the spectrum of these possibilities: from expressive, through conceptual, to geometric abstraction.
Respect for the line and love for it is what connects all three authors. By giving the line a special place in their investigations, they have opened a series of new possibilities in which the line assumes different roles, builds new worlds, or connects the incompatible.
The drawings presented in the exhibition are based on the relationship of black-and-white surfaces (Knežević), black strokes and white backgrounds (Vučinić), with added accents of red (Trtovac). – Svetlana Mladenov
Slobodan Knežević – Abi was born in 1948 in Bačko Dobro Polje. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Graphics, in 1977 and completed his master’s studies in 1979 in the class of Professor Marko Krsmanović. He is a member of ULUS and ULUV. From 1980 until retirement, he was employed at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and from 1996 held the position of full professor for the subject Graphic Arts with Technology and Drawing with Technology.
Selman Trtovac was born in 1970 in Zadar, SFRY. He began his formal art education at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, where he studied painting from 1990 to 1993. He then continued his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the class of Klaus Rinke, where he received his Meisterschüler diploma in 1997. In 2003, he became a member of the International Art Guild (IKG). He is also the initiator and one of the founders of the Independent Art Association Third Belgrade and the artistic collective Perpetuum Mobile. He earned his doctorate in 2012 at the Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade.Ljubomir Vučinić, born in 1956, completed his undergraduate and master’s studies in graphics at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad with the project RESISTANCE-IMPRINT and the graphic portfolio COMPACTED, selected from the subject Visual Culture. He engaged in pedagogical work at the same institution as a professor in the specialized field of drawing. The author has been represented in selective and curated exhibitions presenting the contemporary art scene of Serbia both nationally and internationally, participating in relevant national projects, and has been awarded national prizes and recognitions for his authentic contribution to visual art.